Book Image

The Music Producer's Ultimate Guide to FL Studio 21 - Second Edition

By : Joshua Au-Yeung
Book Image

The Music Producer's Ultimate Guide to FL Studio 21 - Second Edition

By: Joshua Au-Yeung

Overview of this book

The Music Producer's Ultimate Guide to FL Studio 21 is the essential handbook for any aspiring or professional music producer looking to take their craft to the next level. This comprehensive guide covers everything you need to make the most of FL Studio 21's powerful tools and features. You will learn the secrets to creating professional-sounding music, from creating chord progressions to tailoring your sounds to perfection with compression, equalization, and stereo width effects. You'll begin by getting up-and-running with FL Studio 21, creating a beat, and composing a melody. Once you're familiar with the piano roll and mixer console you'll learn how to use plugins to create your own instruments, explore audio width effects, and engage in sound design. You'll get insights into mixing and mastering, as well as promoting and selling your music. This new edition covers some of the most popular features and plugins in FL Studio 21, including FLEX, Luxeverb, Vintage Chorus, Vintage Phaser, Distructor, Fruity Newtime, VFX Sequencer, Pitch Shifter, Frequency Shifter, Fruity Granulizer, Multiband Delay, and Frequency Splitter.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
1
Section I: Getting Up and Running with FL Studio
6
Section II: Music Production Fundamentals
14
Section III: Postproduction and Publishing Your Music
18
Other Books You May Enjoy
19
Index

What is FL Studio?

FL Studio is a music production software. It’s a DAW consisting of tools, effects, and synthesizers designed to compose, mix, and master music.

It’s a software application used to record, edit, and produce audio with a collection of software plugins that can handle all your audio production needs, whether you are a musician, a film/video game composer, or a music producer. It has been designed to be quick to pick up and provides enough features to satisfy sound designers. Once you get comfortable with the main workflow, you’ll find it intuitive and easy to use. Most importantly, in my opinion, using FL Studio is fun and a delight to play with. I frequently find myself losing track of time while having fun with it.

You can download a free trial version of FL Studio, which allows you to try out all the features of the software; however, it won’t let you reopen your saved projects until you purchase a paid version.

FL Studio comes with several paid, tiered versions with more features for the higher tiers. A user can upgrade from a cheaper tier to a higher tier to unlock more features at any time. If you are unsure of what version you need, you can start with the cheapest tier and upgrade later to a higher tier. There is a $10 additional charge for upgrading. Here are the different editions:

  • The Fruity Edition is the cheapest. It includes all the basic features, such as access to the playlist, channel rack, and piano roll. It includes the Autogun, BassDrum, BeepMap, Drumpad, FLEX, Fruity Kick, Fruity DX10, Groove Machine Synth, VFX Sequencer, Fruity Granulizer, Frequency Splitter, Distructor, and MiniSynth plugins. It does not include audio recording.
  • The Producer Edition includes all features in the Fruity Edition plus audio recording and post-production tools. It includes the Edison, Slicex (loop slicer and re-arranger), Sytrus, Maximus, Vocodex, Frequency Shifter, Multiband Delay, Newtime, and SynthMaker plugins. In this book, we include an introduction to the Edison, Slicex, Maximus, and Vocodex plugins.
  • The Signature Bundle includes everything in the Producer Edition plus Fruity Video Player, the DirectWave sampler, Harmless, NewTone, Pitcher, Gross Beat, Vintage Chorus, Vintage Phaser, Pitch Shifter, and the Hardcore guitar effects suite. Fruity Video Player allows you to see videos in sync with your music, which is handy for film composers. In this book, we include an introduction to the DirectWave, NewTone, Pitcher, and Gross Beat plugins.
  • The All Plugins Bundle includes all possible plugins and features, including a large selection of synthesizers.

To see a full comparison chart of the features offered in the different tiers, visit https://www.image-line.com/fl-studio/compare-editions/.